Installing LSWS with Plesk

This wiki covers how to install LiteSpeed Web Server (LSWS) and LiteSpeed's Plesk Extension on a Plesk server. We assume that you have a working Apache-Plesk setup. While there are multiple ways to go about the installation, this wiki will only cover installing the Plesk Extension first and then installing LSWS from the extension.

1. OS: Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, or MacOSX
2. A working Apache setup
3. Plesk 11.5 or higher

wget http://www.litespeedtech.com/packages/plesk/litespeed-plesk.zip

Or simply visit our control panel plugin download page and download it to your machine.

Note: Plesk 12 users can also find our Plesk Extension in the Plesk Extension catalog as “LiteSpeed Extension 1.2.x”.

Server Management > Extensions > Add Extension > litespeed-plesk.zip

Plesk 11.5 requires root level commands be run from the command line to finish LSWS installation.

Run the commands requested as root to complete the installation:

sh /usr/local/psa/admin/plib/modules/litespeed/scripts/install_scripts
rm /usr/local/psa/admin/plib/modules/litespeed/scripts/install_scripts

Note: Plesk 11.5 users will also see a warning that /sbin/ is not used when installing. This is normal and appears because the extension is compatible with both Plesk 11.5 and 12.

You can now access the LiteSpeed Plesk Extension under Server Management > Extensions > LiteSpeed Extension.

The latest version of Plesk may configure Nginx as a reverse proxy server that sits in between the Internet and Apache. Before installing LSWS, you must stop Nginx reverse proxy so that Apache is the only web server handling live traffic or the LiteSpeed process will be blocked from being started.

If Nginx reverse proxy is not currently stopped, you will encounter the following message in the LiteSpeed extension:

Stopping Nginx reverse proxy:

From the Plesk Admin Console, navigate to…

Server Management → Tools and Settings → Server Management → Services Management → Reverse Proxy Server (nginx)

…and click the stop button .

Once it has stopped, you should no longer see the message and can move on to installation.

Click “Install LiteSpeed Web Server”.

After reading the License Agreement, check the “I agree” box and either input your license's serial number or request a trial license.

Scrolling down a little further will present you with “Installation Options” and “WebAdmin Console Login” sections.

The default values for the “Installation Options” section should be acceptable, though it is recommended that you set a non-zero “Port offset” for first time installations. For the “WebAdmin Console Login” section, you are only required to enter a password, but it is recommended to use a username other than the default for security reasons. As of version 1.2.3, CentOS users are also able to specify their desired PHP version from our available RPMs under the “After Installation Notes” section.

When you're ready, click the “Install” button at the bottom.

Now, click “Okay” at the bottom of the page and start LSWS by clicking “Restart LiteSpeed”.

If successful, you should now a message similar to the following on your LiteSpeed Extension page:

LSWS requires PHP built with LSAPI. If you are using CentOS and have already selected a PHP version during installation, you can skip this step. There are a number of ways to get PHP with LSAPI.

1. Many Plesk users may find it easiest to get PHP for LSWS through the Litespeed Repository or Remi Repository.For instructions on how to do this, follow our Installing LSPHP via RPM guide.
2. You can also build PHP through the LSWS WebAdmin Console or through the command line. Building PHP yourself is covered in our Compile PHP for LSWS guide.

Once you have completed PHP installation, go to the next step: testing!

The beauty of the port offset is that you can run LSWS and Apache in parallel. This means you can test out hosting your sites on LSWS to make sure they work before actually turning off Apache. In this setup, I have set the port offset to 1000. If I want to test any sites, I can do so on ports 1080 and 1443 for HTTP and SSL requests respectively.

Once you're confident that your sites are running correctly with LSWS, it's time to switch to LSWS as your main web server.

Click “Switch to LiteSpeed”. This will stop Apache and switch LSWS to your main server ports — 80 and 443.

LiteSpeed is now running as your main web server. Congratulations!